B1G Recap: The Playa Hater's Ball

I sat and watched Big Ten football all weekend, sneering in disgust as the slew of Midwestern collegiate football teams did everything in their power to make their mommas not wish they'd had socially awkward nerd kids instead of hulking morons whose only legitimate skill is chasing a ball around a field while losing to MAC and SEC teams.

Finally got a piece of the pie

Mission accomplished, none of you! I hate you all, and hope that sometime when you're sitting on your toilet at home, you have the realization that your existence is ultimately a futile one and you'll amount to less than the sum total of Michigan students who have gone on to not be completely insufferable adults.

Alert to any and all SEC fans who are struggling in vain to read the written word contained within this post: the Big Ten is not the SEC. We do not bro out after games and slap each other on the posteriors and make plans to upload videos on Youtube of good ol' fashioned sexual assault on each other. There is no "BEE ONE GEE" chant. There is no mutual respect. There is only a dark and persistent hate that leads to glorious schadenfreude when other teams in the conference inevitably screw up in a sad and comically tragic fashion.

What this post will serve as is a reminder to Eleven Warrior readers of what our mangy, half dead and dumb Big Ten brothers from a different mother are up to on a weekly basis, as we marvel at their ineptitude and general awfulness as they take the sport of embarrassing themselves to truly Olympic heights. They're terrible, all of 'em.

So that's what's up, Big Ten. I hate you, I hate you, I don't even know you and I hate your guts! I hope all the bad things in life happen to you, and nobody else but you. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE.

Minnesota 30, UNLV 27

The Golden Gophers needed three overtimes to beat an assorted collection of gambling addicts and mobsters, as MarQueis Gray threw for 269 yards and ran for another 68. Minnesota's heroic 3 point comeback in the 4th quarter was almost rendered moot by a late UNLV drive, but they proved to be just slightly worse than Minny and had to settle for a field goal, leading to three overtimes completely devoid of any drama or interest to anyone but the immediate family of Jerry Kill. Minnesota ended up winning thanks to UNLV's redshirt freshman throwing an interception, which made Gopher fans kind of angry because that's supposed to be their thing. How dare they.

Anyway, speaking of empty, sad gestures, even though Sparty pulled out the late touchdown to barely take the game away from a Boise State team that had to replace the entire population of Idaho after they lost them to graduation, junior quarterback Andrew Maxwell's 248 yards passing was negated by his 3 interceptions. Kirk Cousins he is not, and that's got to be infuriating for Maxwell because Kirk Cousins was pretty "eh" 95% of the time.

Big Ten Standings

Legends

Iowa

0-0

1-0

Michigan State

0-0

1-0

Minnesota

0-0

1-0

Nebraska

0-0

1-0

Northwestern

0-0

1-0

Michigan

0-0

0-1

Leaders

Illinois

0-0

1-0

Indiana

0-0

1-0

Ohio State

0-0

1-0

Purdue

0-0

1-0

Wisconsin

0-0

1-0

Penn State

0-0

0-1

Purdue 48, Eastern Kentucky 6

Oh cool, great, you beat a team that I promise no one in your fan base knew existed until they saw the schedule for this year. Quiz time! Off the top of your head, what's EKU's mascot? I'll give you a hint: you don't know because it's Eastern Kentucky and no one cares.

Robert Marve threw for nearly 300 yards and Akeem Shavers added 74 on the ground against an EKU team made up of the best football players in all of Appalachian Kentucky not currently in jail or in hiding from the census bureau. Oh, did I mention that EKU is an FCS team? And that Danny Hope graduated from there and was their head coach from 2003 to 2007? And that they're not even a good FCS team?

But seriously, congrats to Purdue for beating the tar out of a FCS nonfactor looking for a paycheck. It will serve you well during Big Ten conference play.

Iowa 18, NIU 17

Kirk Ferentz continued to earn his $3.65 million dollar annual salary by pulling off a stunning upset of the Northern Illinois Huskies, the reigning champions of the prestigious GODADDY.com Bowl. The Hawkeyes were able to cobble together a running back out of bits of twine and silly putty, and the resulting football player (named "Damon Bullock" after Ferentz's favorite restaurant and fictional detective) somehow rushed for 150 yards, 23 of which came on a TD-scoring scamper with 2:15 left in the game that put Iowa ahead for good.

It was yet another B1G 4th quarter comeback in the final minutes, which would be very exciting if not for the fact that you might as well just lose if you're only gonna beat NIU by one. Kirk Ferentz could not be reached for comment, as he was busy rolling around naked in a giant pile of money and giggling to himself.

WISCONSIN 26, Northern Iowa 21

Northern Iowa was one Ali Farokhmanesh from pulling off a ridiculous upset of 12th ranked Wisconsin, as they scored two late touchdowns to make the game far closer than it had any right to be. Montee Ball got 120 yards, but it took him 32 carries to get them, and more or less looked the part of every overfed and undersped Wisconsin RB ever. New Wisconsin QB and Maryland transfer Danny O'Brien played well, and really it was the first and last time you'll ever root for him to do so because the longer he's a Badger, the more likely Bret Bielema's personal brand of skeeze is likely to rub off on him. Oh well.

Nebraska 49, Southern Mississippi 20

Taylor Martinez threw for 5 touchdowns and over 350 yards somehow, meaning that he's already met his passing quota for the season and will probably not manage to even complete another pass until late October. The most relevant quote from the game was this:

"I think for a while I was probably [Taylor's] only friend," offensive coordinator Tim Beck told reporters.

Guess what! You still are. You are also probably Bo Pelini's only friend. But, in a weird and ironic twist, they are your only friends, too. You lead a sad, sad existence, Tim Beck. Anyway, the Cornhuskers had over 630 yards of total offense, which will be pretty hilarious in retrospect like two months from now, in kind of a sick, sad way (especially since Rex Burkehead sprained his knee during the game).

Ohio (the actual "Ohio") 24, Penn State 14

Penn State spent an inordinate amount of time on pep rallies and other mostly empty gestures designed to convince their fan base that watching a team limp through losses to MAC teams (albeit a pretty good one in the form of the Ohio Bobcats) is totally cool and fine and worth it and will not get boring at all after the first 6 or 7 years of it. McGloin tried to McMoxie Penn State to a win by chucking it 48 times for 260 yards, but with no real running game and no points in the second half, Andy Dalton's slow younger brother couldn't pull off a victory, moral or otherwise.

Pretty much everyone in the world is rooting against Penn State right now, so, in a weird kind of way... I am too.

Tim Beckman can coach, and while I'm sure that he'll throw the full weight of whatever voodoo dolls or sacrificial lambs Ron Zook left in the basement of Memorial Stadium to make Illinois a good team, with Scheelhaase out they are basically nothing more than a middling team in a below average conference. Ilinois' leading rusher was a tight end lined up as an H-back, which kind of sounds like the beginning to a really weird and sad joke.

Northwestern 42, Syracuse 41

Oh Northwestern, you think because you guys have some fly new uniforms that you're all fancy now, huh? You couldn't POSSIBLY almost blow a second half lead to Syracuse, because you're too "cerebral," right? Well guess what, your big brains apparently aren't that much of a help when you're trying to defend 65 freaking passing attempts from a team that really just stopped giving any sort of crap. Syracuse outgained Northwestern 596-337 overall, and a dumber team might be able to shrug off that disparity by saying, "Hey we won the game, second place first loser push it to the limit USA NUMBER ONE!" But I know you better than that, Northwestern.

You're gonna lay in bed tonight, knowing that your secondary is a horrorshow on par with the most over the top Texas Chainsaw Massacre iteration, and think to yourself that maybe you'd have been better off just interning in your dad's law firm rather than doing this whole football thing. And then you'll realize you've got a mandatory 5 am workout and sob yourself to sleep.

Indiana 24, Indiana State 17

Indiana QB Tre Roberson went 26/36 for 280 yards yesterday in the win, and coach Kevin Wilson said that he thought he "...did real well. I think he's going to have a real good year, and I think he's a lot better than a lot of people think he is." Keeping in mind this was against Indiana State, here are some other things Kevin Wilson is impressed by:

Modern plumbing

Whenever someone at a fast food joint pokes down that bubble on the lid of his soft drink

Velcro

Perfectly timed high fives

The chemical process involved in making Jell-O

His crappy team beating an even crappier team by one freaking touchdown

His resume, once he omits the entirety of last season

ALABAMA 41, Michigan 14

I don't even know what to say about this one. Michigan WAS BACK, BABY before actually playing a non-awful team (read: a non-Big Ten team), as evidenced by them promptly giving up 31 points in the first half to Alabama as Nick Saban showed all the mercy of a Roman praetor sentencing some Huns to death. Denard's head (and back, and legs) were put on a pike and mounted in front of the rest of the Michigan offense, as a warning to the rest of the team not to try any funny business. Denard lost about three years of his life to to the punishment he took on the way to going just 11 for 26 and throwing two really, really dumb interceptions.

Not that it mattered. Bama ran all over an already suspect Michigan defensive line, a total of 232 yards with 111 coming from true freshman T.J. Yeldon. Nick Saban drank Brady Hoke's milkshake, he drank it right up. And of course, we all know how much Brady Hoke loves milkshakes.

...

So there you go, a thoroughly mediocre weekend of Big Ten football. Aside from Ohio State, even the wins that the conference pulled off were suspect, and the two losses were predictable as they were sad as hell. Will OSU continue to be the lone non-depressing team in the conference? Will Pat Fitzgerald finally have an epiphany and make a lateral move to managing a local Cracker Barrel? Will Denard Robinson hit his head so hard that he travels back in time like Cartman did in that one episode of South Park? Tune in next week and find out!

Comments

This was awesome. Well done, truly.
i'll never understand that SEC chant b*llsh*t. If your team is winning, why would you want to share that with the rest your conference? And if your team isnt winning, then you ought to shut the hell up instead of trying to clutch at someone else's success. And either way, the Civil War isn't getting reversed.

You dont understand it because the BIG sucks as a whole lol. I understand them representing their conference when facing another so called strong opponent from another major conference. If the BIG ripped off a streak like the SEC has done then trust me we would be representing the BIG as a whole. Until someone dethrones them they have every right to brag. Hopefully USC can end the SEC streak this year....

Nah, I don't understand because it's douchebaggy. The rest the B1G could rock nine titles in a row and I'd care as much as if Algeria won a gold in Olympic fencing. If it isn't OSU winning, then it is somebody else about whom I don't care. It isn't a representation of regional pride or a magically larger penis just because some Midwest team won.

The origin of the SEC chant is 2004. Auburn was left out of the national championship because (in part) the SEC was not viewed as a tough enough conference. It was a shot at the conference and every team in it as far as the fans were concerned, so the fans began pointing out when it's dominance was on display. Say what you will about the chant, but it helped transform the image of the conference -and they haven't had a team left out since.

@CPLUNK Dude your taking it way too serious. When your conference dominates the way the SEC has then you can chant whatever you want. I know people who hate our O-H! I-O! thing. Its just school/conference pride. Until somebody proves the SEC wrong and snatches the crown off their head I have no problem with it. I dont like hearing it, but they have earned it....

I get what you are saying, and until someone else wins the big one, they can keep talking. But when other conferences had dominating runs in previous decades you didn't see the lesser teams talking up their winners. You never saw Indiana swinging off our nuts . . . ahem Buckeyes. It's a if one of us wins, we all win mentality that has no place in the game of football. People always talk about proving it on the field, well, most of the teams in that league . . . or any league, don't prove it on the field. Bama, Auburn, LSU, they can all talk because they have won recent BCS NCs but for the others, be a man and take your medicine when you suck. Stop taking credit for something you had no part in.

Dont forget about Florida.... While I personally cant say see myself ever doing it, it does have a meaning behind it like Catch 5 pointed out. The SEC is clearly the best conference from top to bottom and that really cant be argued right now. I hate that its like that but when you have four different teams win the NC for the last six years, it makes bragging about it a whole lot easier. As far as Indiana goes, they dont say anything in regards to football because they dont want people to remember they have a football team lol.

The thing is, there is no such thing as "your conference". You don't hear the Redskins or Eagles running around chanting "NFC EAST! NFC EAST!" or Orioles fans chanting "AL EAST! AL EAST!" when the Yankees win.
And "they" didn't earn it. Alabama, LSU, Auburn, and Florida can brag about their individual accomplishments, but Tennesee? Georgia? South Carolina? Arkansas? The others? What, exactly, differentiates them from Purdue or UCLA? Willingness to clutch at the success of others?
My point is that it is silly for Bama, LSU, Auburn and Florida to reduce their own accomplishment by making it a regional accomplishment, and its douchey for the other schools to pretend like they've earned or proven anything. They haven't proven a thing.
You're right that they can say whatever they want, but there is nothing wrong with pointing it out when what they say is ridiculous.
Root for your TEAM. Imagine if Wisconsin won the title this year (yeah, right) and I came on this board saying with a post saying "Yeah, baby, B1G!!! B1G!!". Everybody here would be wondering what the heck got in to me, and why I wasn't disgusted at Wisconsin's success like the rest of them.
And, number of words to the contrary, I don't take it that seriously. I do believe it is one of the stupidest things in all sports though.

It is a little bit different in CFB compared to NFL though. Not exactly apples to apples. You play roughly half the teams in the NFL in a season and it ends in a playoff. In CFB the only way to gauge how quality your team is is by perception of the strength of competition you play. Therefore it does make a difference for a lot of schools. It may be BS but it is what it is and it's all about perception. How else can you really compare teams in CFB if you only play head to head within your conference plus 3-4 out of over 100 other teams in the country. The perception that you play in a tougher conference only helps. There aren't rankings in the NFL, that doesn't matter. That being said, a big time school like Ohio State will get its due if it's up there and undefeated at the end of a season because of our own reputation. We don't need the perception of our conference to be amazing as much as other schools that don't have our school's name brand and reputation...so screw everyone else at this point.

I hate seeing that score! It brings back so many bad memories. Is that the magical score when a top tier BIG team faces a top tier SEC team?? Man both of those games were a disaster but part of me enjoyed seeing michigan get pounded into oblivion!!

I had actually been talking with a buddy before this game and had said that I didn't think I wanted Michigan to win, but that I hoped they put up a better showing than 41-14... I should have put money on the score right after the words left my mouth.
And no, you aren't the only one who remembers it due to its palindrome-ness.

Excellent writing...I would share this with my friends here in Florida but they are all off at the "war of northern aggresion" symposium...really just a BBQ at the red neck yacht club!!! Btw Barry Alvarez has house here in Naples..Brett Bielemas mom is the gardner..

Nice article Johnny and I hope B1G can keep that up. I realize this is mainly about B1G play, but did you all see YSU beat Pitt? I had to click on it to make sure it was actually Pitt Panthers. I'd say this may help some recruits look more at OSU like Dorian Johnson and perhaps some others who were looking at Pitt. I think we can lay that "great" power rushing/O-linemen to rest that P. Christ is supposedly going to produce at Pitt. That seem as much of a joke as the pic of Chappelle at the Haters Ball. I personally like Tyrone Biggums or Clayton Bigsby (sorry ahead of time for these outtakes).

"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."

"I love football. I think it is most wonderful game in world and I despise to lose."

The Hawkeyes were able to cobble together a running back out of bits of twine and silly putty, and the resulting football player (named "Damon Bullock" after Ferentz's favorite restaurant and fictional detective) . . .

Most of the BT wins this weekend were cobbled together out of bits of twine and silly putty.

you guys have no idea how hard it is to write these posts. my parents, girlfriend, coworkers, and students all read my insane ramblings that i write for this site, and the amount of self-censorship that went into this thing is kind of amazing considering how much i genuinely dislike 99% of the rest of the big ten

like, im honestly kind of ashamed of some of the stuff i would write if given free reign to rip on wisconsin without any boundaries. thank god for 11W

Not sure where everyone else is comin from but this article if shared on espn or something would make Ohio state look like a bunch pretentious idiots cause we beat a Miami of Ohio team we were scheduled to crush. Saying the big ten was a let down is an under statement but the blatant disrespect in the article really annoyed me.

I know I'm commenting a day late (damn work piled up - no rest for the wicked after watching the game on Saturday), but I wanted to say.... This commend just made my coffee come out my nose. Thanks for that! Great write-up, by the way.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Johnny" - Mark May.
In all seriousness, though, the B1G needs to get serious about football if it wants to compete. It needs better coaches and it needs to spend some of that mountain of money on them. It can't just keep saying it's not bad without doing anything about it.

Michigan you make me sad. You should just drop out of the B1G. I didn't think you would win because Alabama is clearly a better team but you could have at least covered the spread. And when it comes to Wisconsin your lucky they didn't call the CRAP you played yesterday the Rose bowl or you probably would have lost too! GO BUCKS!

I like like this piece, fun to read.
So the B10 dropped two (Fich and PSU). The SEC dropped one out of conference, Auburn, but will likely also be two after the Kentucky game. Vandy also lost but that was in conference. And for the most part both conferences played cup-cakes, especially Bama. So lets just call it SEC/BG1 even-steven so far.
I do root conference because it does affect rankings, and would therefore be short sighted not to.
I also take issue with this idea that the SEC is better "top to bottom". What is the bottom of the SEC, MissSt, Kentucky, Vandy? What is the bottom of BG1, IN, MN, and soon to be PSU... OK nevermind, but anyway, NWs win over Vandy next weekend should make up for MI lost to AL, conference wise.

Does the SEC have a team thats worse than Indiana or Minnesota?? Lol maybe Vandy & Kentucky but thats up for debate. They have Bama, Auburn, LSU, Florida, and other big schools like Ark, Ole Miss, Tenn, & Georgia. The face of the B1G is OSU, and scUM! Every now and then Wisc, MSU, PSU, or some other school may make a run, but usually its OSU or scUM representing the conference. The SEC has four elite teams that can make a title run every year. If the SEC and B1G had a tournament the SEC would win pretty easily. Thats not a knock to our conference because I honestly think were the second best, but the SEC is clearly the best and anybody failing to admit it is in denial. They have more elite teams and their mid/lower level teams stack up againt our mid/lower level teams. But dont worry its only a matter of time before the tides change...

Bama- Really freaking good team.
Arkansas- Good team.
LSU- We'll see. They have a good defense, but I'm just not sold on them having anything other than an ok run game.
Auburn- Jury's out. We'll see.
Florida- No offense.
Georgia- Way overrated.
SC- Way overrated.
Kentucky- They suck.
Tennessee- Don't buy any of their hype either.
Ole Miss- Awful.
Miss State- Awful.
Vandy- Not enough depth or talent to keep up with others.
Mizzou- Franklin is a solid QB, but we'll see how they make the jump to the SEC.
Texas A&M- Way overrated last year. They suck this year.
I fail to see how the SEC has 4 elite teams.

That is why I said "OK, nevermind", our bottom is worse than their bottom because IN and MN are worse than Vandy and KY.
Because of IN and MN we cannot call NW the bottom, sometimes they are quite descent, Vandy level or better. I hope they kick the shit out of Vandy next weekend. Also, this will be a battle of two schools that play descent football and also have outstanding academic reputations. (Of course, calling Vandy the "Harvard of the South" is like calling Mogadishu the Miami of Somalia. But if they need feel that they have at least one university of note for academics, so be it.)

As bad as the Big Ten (or Little 12) was, can there be a worse team than Pitt? They lost to Tressel's old school, Youngstown State of FCS fame. The Panthers have something in common with the school up north of me in Toledo...a disgusting defeat to the NCAA's version of triple-A minor league football teams.